For in the Morning I Will See
by ShouldiWonder
Summary: There are universes beneath her skin.    Begging to be set free.    All hail the Queen!


For in the Morning I Will See**  
><strong>(Pretty Dolls and Ink Stains)  
>(Summary: <em>There are universes beneath her skin. (Begging the be set free.) All hail the Queen!<em>)_  
><em>_Merlin BBC. Morgana Le Fay. Implied Morgana/Merlin. __  
><em>  
>Morgana's father had told her, once, that knowledge is power. She had known this long before, had learned it in the way her mother had died lying in her bed with a book in her hand and a smile on her face. There was something about him saying it, though, that gave it that extra burst of power. Her father fought wars and had fought dragons. He consulted with the King and had servants that looked at him with a sort of reverence that people reserved for childhood heroes. (Later she'd realize that her father was a childhood hero. He was either the martyr or the fool, depending on her mood.) He also had a room filled with tomes and soft, overly stuffed chairs that they would sit in together. She would have pretended to agree with him, then, even if she hadn't because all she had wanted was to give him a daughter that he could make him proud. That time, however, that time was special because she honestly did and that <em>meant <em>something. So she had nodded, frantic and quick, as if it were a secret to be shared only between the two of them. (The real secret was that he hadn't a daughter at all.)

She learned that power is tricky to wield or to gain the way most Kings do not simply for the matter of their pride. She soaked the words in, played them over her tongue and let them drift and bounce around her head. Words are dangerous because they hurt more than cuts or bruises, simply because no one can tend to them and most people pretend they need no tending at all. They filled her with a sense of worth most think no woman should have and she forgot when to still her tongue or when to hide her sword. She learned depths of herself that she explored with new eyes, and sometimes she had to hold her breath and count to ten to erase what she found there. (She learned the ancient folk tales from her tutor. Only, in her mind, Snow White made the Queen an apple pie and Cinderella had a vial of hemlock in the folds of her apron.)

Yet books are not where knowledge lays forever and it is with expectant (red) eyes that she looked over Camelot. Her (then) new home. Camelot had taught her things that the books couldn't or wouldn't. Taught her how to have friends and how to be betrayed. How to betray. Taught her that words can be both teasing and harsh and that a smile, a touch of the hand, could make them both settle together into the sounds with perfect harmony. (Taught her how to fight with both the tyrant King and the simple man of blood and bones and flesh. Taught her that, in the end, they were one and the same.) Still she read, searching for something that she couldn't name in the whirls of letters and the spaces between the lines. She had been a Ward (a daughter) and books had filled her rooms by the dozens, rich, leather bound books that smelled simultaneously ancient and brand new. They were always put away, hidden in cupboards and under bed cloths and that had been the first time she realized that most women couldn't read at all. Maybe that was the thing Camelot taught her best. How to be enraged. She had been angry before. Angry at her mother for dying. Angry at her father for always leaving. Angry at her maidservant who treated her like an object to be cared for and praised instead of a person. Camelot, though. Camelot made her feel her blood boil inside her veins, too hot and not enough because her skin had barely flushed, still the ice queen on the outside, and couldn't people _see_ it? She had thought that maybe if people saw their beloved King's Ward, the Lady of Camelot (the princess, the righteous heir, the bastard child) chafing at the injustice they would act. A kingdom couldn't stand without its people and a King had no power without subjects. (They never did and never would.)

Camelot educated her better than any novel ever could and, in the end, she learned that she was less. Less than the men, peasant and servants alike, who roamed the streets simply because of her gender. Less than the people who stole and killed because she had something she hadn't asked for inside her mind and searing behind her eyes. Less than brave Arthur who rode out to fight monsters while she clasped at his armor, hands sliding off slick metal with her eyes unseeing and unfocused. Less than strong Guin who straightened her shoulders and raised her chin as the sunrise spread like a bruise into an impossible day while Morgana nursed her wounds. Less than Merlin who had stars in his eyes and in his smile while she was the empty spaces of dark canvas sky in between. (And they decided for her when it came down to it. She had once charged into battle on the little things they did, Arthur's stride and Guin's smile and Merlin's laugh making her pick up a sword and saddle a horse with them by her side. Simply because she was the empty space between all of their choices, taking up time just because the universe had tired of too much detail.)

And so Morgause came to Camelot like a spreading fire. She was more than the men with her armor and sword and she was more than the King with her whispered words and flaring eyes. Morgause who made the dreams settle in her mind with a whimper and who caught her books on fire to be turned to ash. Who looked at her and the places around her like she filled up the space, like she had options and choices and not just consequences. It hadn't been hard at all. Her lifestyle of cause-and-effect, stutter, stop, breathe, repeat had died with a gulp of poisoned water. It might have been hard, before that, when she hadn't known that there were more shades of grey in her world than she fancied seeing. But no. So she had counted backwards and started the process of painting everything over in black and white, because she was the heroine and they were the villains. (Heartless Arthur who stood by the King's side expressionless. Apathetic Guin who fell so hard and so fast for a prince who would see her mistress dead. Cruel Merlin who touched so tenderly and laughed so kindly you never noticed as he slipped a knife into your back.)

No, it hadn't been hard at all when it came down to it.

(And in the morning, she will be Queen.)


End file.
